Hats off to the Mountain Cattleman

By Mark Debono

Now the hot weather's here, have you been looking for a hat? The place to be on the weekend to see every conceivable style of headwear on every size and shape head was the Mountain Cattleman's Association annual get-together at beautiful Glen Falloch Station in the Macalister Valley near Licola.

Basin Flat was crowded with four-wheel-drives, horse floats, hats and kelpies, and more than three thousand people.

They came from far and wide, all over Victoria and New South Wales, to see the famous Mountain Cattleman's Cup horse race, the Victorian wood chopping championships, the popular dog jumps and a host of novelty events.

Chris Connley from Benambra demonstrated his skills on horseback by winning the Cattleman's cup for the second year in a row.

Arguably the biggest crowds gathered for the dog jumping event. Dogs of all shapes and sizes tried to scale a vertical pine fence that grew progressively through the competition to a staggering height of almost eight feet (in the old scale) in the final round.

The two most unlikely competitors were a smallish labradoodle style dog and a huge animal the commentators described as part-horse.

Both did remarkably well in a field of lithe and springy kelpie cross-style escape artists.

The other crowd pleaser was the row of huge brawny blokes swinging axes at a furious pace in the Victorian woodchop championships.

One of the highlights was the World Champion axeman, Laurence O'Toole, from Doncaster in Melbourne, competing with his father Laurence senior in the finals.

The surrounding hills rang to the sounds of the whip cracking competitions, and master whipmaker, Anthony Rennick made the trip from Wagga Wagga to demonstrate his artisan skills.

In a crowd of individuals one young woman, Kylie Traill from Sale, stood out for her style of animal companion. Rather than the conventional cattle dog on a stout leather lead she opted for a miniature pig as a pet.

The baby, named Bev, is apparently house trained and is learning to sit on command at only three months old. And she was walking quite well on a lead till a series of tired squeals told owner Kylie the tiny piglet need her beauty sleep.